In correcting that gerrymander, GOP leaders announced that they would make sure the map would continue to elect 10 Republicans and three Democrats to Congress. Partisan gerrymanders, whereby lines are drawn to lump members of one party or another into as few districts as possible so their voting power is diluted elsewhere, have generally been accepted by the courts, while racial gerrymanders have not. That may be changing, though, as the Supreme Court works its way through these cases.

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"The Supreme Court has the opportunity to adopt the standard for measuring partisan gerrymandering presented to the justices in the Wisconsin case, and by striking down those maps this term have a clear path forward to doing the same in North Carolina," Ruth Greenwood, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center said in an emailed statement. "In both cases, bipartisan panels of judges have found that the gerrymanders are so extreme that they violate the constitution."